The Centre’s initiative to eradicate the social evil of scavenging (practice of cleaning night soil manually) by supporting the scavengers financially, has failed to achieve its intended goal.
The Government of India had last year come out with a scheme to allure people out of the inhuman job of scavenging. But, the lackadaisical attitude of bureaucrats has become a stumbling block for the Government to wipe out this age old profession from the society.
Earlier, the Government has failed to eradicate scavenging (practice of cleaning night soil manually) through punitive measures with implementation of Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry latrines (Prohibition) Act 1993.
last year, the Union Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry had come out with a scheme to provide financial aid to manual scavengers to enable them to shun this profession and be self-employed in other petty jobs. Under the scheme, the scavengers are being given financial aid of `40,000 as an encouragement to come out of this profession and this money is not meant to be returned.
The Union Ministry had also written to all the States last year to send lists of the people who are still performing manual scavenging so that the funds could be released for them. But the scheme has received a cold response from the State Governments.
The States, where thousands of people still practice scavenging as a source of livelihood, have shown no enthusiasm in providing data of the manual scavengers.
According to Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011, Madhya Pradesh has the maximum number of manual scavengers, where more than 23 thousand people are still practicing scavenging. Uttar Pradesh comes next to MP, the data has found 17,600 manual scavengers in the State. The surprising fact is that Punjab is at fifth position, with presence of 12 thousand manual scavengers.
Though the State of Uttar Pradesh has responded to the Centre’s call in a positive way and list of around 10 thousand beneficiaries have been sent to the Centre, the authorities of Punjab could prepare list of only 64 beneficiaries till now. It pinches more to know that the Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Vijay Sampla hails from Punjab.
Available information suggests that only 30 thousand people could have been provided with the financial aid of `40,000 as the States have sent lists of this many beneficiaries. Out of these 30 thousands, Punjab had sent a list of 64 beneficiaries, and they have been given the financial aid.
Talking on the situation, Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Vijay Sampla said that the Centre is trying to encourage States to send more and more data of the beneficiaries as the Government wants to bring an end to the practice of scavenging by 2019.
Government of India had banned manual scavenging way back in 1993 by introducing Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry latrines (Prohibition) Act 1993, wherein manual scavenging is declared an offence. Heavy penality and imprisonment of up to one year has been provided under the Act.